


Madame O.G.

by Flourish



Category: Phantom of the Opera
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Fix-It, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-01-11
Updated: 2005-01-10
Packaged: 2017-10-04 22:55:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 21,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flourish/pseuds/Flourish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Change just one of Christine's actions, and the story turns out quite differently, as the Phantom learns to be human once more and his Angel discovers that love is not always like the storybooks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Altogether An Ingenué

**Author's Note:**

> This story is not only 'alternate universe' in that it changes the events of _The Phantom of the Opera_ rather substantially – essentially giving Christine a dose of good sense – but also in that it is based on the plot points of the 2004 movie, informed by the ALW music and a close reading of Leroux' book. (Christine's knowledge of Erik's first name and the abbreviation 'O.G.' was originally a mistake; however, I have left it in, as it would be difficult to disentangle it from the story at this late date and it follows the Leroux timeline, at least.) I doubt Leroux purists – or Webber purists – will enjoy this fanfic terribly much; rather, I shall have to hope to appeal to those who have dabbled in phandom solely from their desire to have more _Phantom_, in whatever form it may come.

> "Your fear, your terror, all of that is just love and love of the most exquisite kind, the kind which people do not even admit to themselves."  
> _Le Fantôme de l'Opéra,_ Gaston Leroux

  


* * *

_ **Scene: Christine, having sung La Carlotta's part, has just descended to the Phantom's lair to the first time – but her curiosity has gotten the better of her. We begin after she has unmasked Erik, during what would be in the Webber musical "Music of the Night."** _

She had reached out with the same motion Mme. Giry exhorted her to use in her penultimate dance for _Hannibal_ – the swoop, graceful, the arc of the hand – and curled her fingers around his cheek, his white cheek: it was only papier-machê, painted to an even matte finish. Then came the down-arc. Then came his face, the swan's wing of his mask flying away. His face... The violent response, the declaration that she must be his for ever...

"I can bear to look at it, Erik," she said, steeling her resolve. She would have called him _Monsieur _something-or-other, to be politebut she did not know his surname.

Did not know his name! The hilarity of it struck her suddenly, vastly, consuming in a way not unlike Erik's voice was consuming. She was doing what he asked – she had chosen the wedding mass, chosen it of her own free will – and she did not even know what name she was to take. But take his name she must: in a moment of dreadful clarity, as he stood over her and raved about how she had now destroyed all chance of leaving, she had connected his dreadful visage, his lair, his seductions and his roses. _I would have a wife to take about on Sundays, and amuse,_ she could imagine he was thinking. _I would have a pretty wife, to cosset and teach –_ and therefore she would be _Madame. _– Mme. O.G.!

She laughed and laughed, and the tears she had managed to keep un-spilt came flowing over her cheeks. The laughter was familiar – it was hysterics, the very same that she had felt when she had made her impromptu audition for lead soprano and heard the strange, ethereal voice of an angel burst from her own lips, when she had doubled over unsure of whether she was crying for her father who could not hear her anymore or laughing for the look that would surely pass over La Carlotta's face when she heard little Christine Daaé the chorus girl sing a part meant for her.

But back then she had thought it was her father's spirit, truly, or at least a spirit sent by him, teaching her; she had not imagined this flesh-and-blood-man standing before her, poling her in his boat ever-deeper into the sunken foundations of the theater. And for all his tricks, she began to see – to see that that was where they were, not off in cloud-cuckoo land but in a dystopia of Erik's own making.

Hiccupping, she tried to find her composure once more, raising her eyes to his and seeing in them a steely anger. His anger was the trick: his anger so bitter, so pure. That was what she would have to quench. "I did not mean that laughter cruelly," she said, letting him see her tear-stained face. "I did _not._"

Kneeling as still as a statue, Christine knew that she looked like an angel: she was not altogether an _ingenué_. But she did not know whether that would anger him. And for a moment she was afraid that he would cuff her, or lash out in the way that she knew some men did.

"I –" he paused, and she thought that he would be capable of anything in that moment, capable of killing a hundred men if he thought that would do something for her. The stories said that was a great thing, but now she knew it was terrible. The Angel of Music – the Phantom, she corrected herself – was as absolute and inexorable as the sea. "You cannot bear to look at me even now," he said, his voice cold and resigned. "See – " and he turned his head so she could no longer focus only on the unspoiled, handsome half of his face.

"No, see," she said, and opened her doe-eyes wide.


	2. Any Way But One

It was surely night, night according to Christine's internal clock and according to the great grandfather-chime that ruled Erik's underground home. Nine o'clock, ten o'clock it chimed, but he did not come to the swan-shaped bed provided for her. But then, he had wanted a wedding mass, had he not? A wedding mass; and that meant a proper bride.

The anxiety stayed, chewing at her stomach, but her mind was settled and she dropped off to sleep, untroubled by the events that had taken place far above earlier that day – untroubled even by the swan-white mask, by M. le Vicomte de Chagny's sudden appearance in her dressing-room, by the mirror's turn. She was tired: this was fact. Her young body needed its rest, after performance, after stretching her voice to the limit and _two_ hysterics-fits and the delirious attentions of the Phantom and the Vicomte. So rest it did, without asking leave of any one.

She woke in the morning to the soft, persistent sound of a pocket-watch ticking by her ear on the pillow. As the world swam into existence, she read it – nine o'clock in the morning. Then she saw the note beneath it, a note written in red scratchings, half childishly. It read:

> My dear Christine, you need have no concern as to your fate. You have no better or more respectful friend in the world than myself. You are alone, at present, in this home which is yours. I am going out shopping to fetch you all the things you can need. The pocket-watch is yours, if you like, as a gift.

A glance revealed that the boat was gone. She might easily wade her way out, but she had no way of knowing when Erik had left, or when he would return; and at the same time, a curiosity had seized her in the night. Her dreams had been filled with people at a masquerade ball, using half-masks similar to the Phantom's to cover their faces and great costumes like La Carlotta's, like _hers_ now, to cover their bodies.

"Why doesn't he simply live in the world, if he can go shopping for me and not be thought at all strange?" she wondered aloud, and felt that she had put her finger on something. It was simple; it was intuitive. If he had not taken that obvious step to relieve the loneliness she felt in every word he spoke there must be a reason for it, something she could not comprehend.

Then there was her prison to consider and distract her from that question. But no, it was not a prison. He had left her unaccompanied, with all the wide ways of the underground to explore if she wished. It was a home of a sort, for it was in the opera house, and she had considered the girls' dormitories in the opera house her home for many years. Indeed it was not much different from the great prop-storing rooms, piled with opulent oddities, errant sheet music, draperies that were long ago too moth-eaten to use in the theater proper. There was a bust of a disfigured man that caught her eye, obviously a morbid fancy of Erik's, sitting atop a grand organ she didn't dare to play. A paper mockery of the opera-house's main stage was free of scenery, but laying next to it were dolls obviously representing various singers: La Carlotta was easy to pick out, and Piangi, and after a moment she identified herself. They had been repainted quite painstakingly to represent their most recent parts. There were mirrors, she realized, nearly everywhere - whether so that the Phantom could contemplate his horror of a face or whether so that he could contemplate his well-formed and well-outfitted person, she could not tell. They had draperies as well, swagged back from their surfaces in thick, sensuous folds.

So she pried at the drapes left hanging, realizing that Erik might well have a pattern of hiding things: some, that seemed to have paintings or playbills hung from them, covered only solid wall with a nail driven right through to hold the decoration. Others hid cupboards housing a great variety of items: glass-and-paste jewelry used for queens in the opera proper, two very fine and very real brooches set with rubies that looked like drops of blood, a set of champagne flutes, mismatched plates of the finest china. On a low shelf there was bread and one bottle of an expensive red wine, nothing more.

He dines at acquaintances' houses too often to keep a full larder! she thought, then sensed the giggling hysteria's return. A set of breathing exercises calmed it, and she moved on, pulling back the next heavy swatch of velvet to reveal whiteness of stunning purity.

She looked again, and realized what it was - a dress on a mannequin in a mirrored alcove, a wedding-dress of such splendor and opulence it seemed almost to belong on-stage in the opera. Perhaps it _had_ been on-stage once, in some long-forgotten production, salvaged only by this ghost for his bride!

And at a glance she could see that it would fit. The mannequin was just of the sort that the costume-makers used; the dress fit the form just as Carlotta's costume had, when it had been so quickly basted to match her slimmer measurements. Around the mannequin's neck hung a chain with a ring laced onto it, a simple gold band. On its head a garland of silk flowers lay, holding a lace veil in place.

Horror seized her, and wonder at the same time, and neither would let go. She dropped the velvet, watched it sway from side to side and then turned to go back to her bed, back to where she had found such peace only a few moments before. She found Erik's face swimming before her eyes, a face half belonging to a prince and half to a grotesque.

The latter half found ascendancy, as it always would.

Christine cried, but could not sleep. She laid on Erik's swan-shaped bed and imagined herself a mermaid, swimming away from the island-home he had made for her. Her legs, however, refused to carry her into the water. She wanted to leave, and could not bring herself to. Poor unfortunate Christine, trapped by a madman! she thought, but no one was there to see her suffering.

* * *

When Erik returned, poling the boat silently through the waters that surrounded his home, Christine was sitting calmly on the bench before his organ, reading a lovely gilt-edged edition of St. Augustine. She had resisted the temptation to put on the wedding dress and give him a surprise – a temptation she hardly knew she had until, rising from the bed, she found herself standing before it once more.

He unloaded his parcels from the boat with studied carelessness, tossing them to the shore with force enough that they skittered along the smoothed-rock floor but did not jounce and break their twine. They were soft parcels, large, wrapped in cloth, and even before he said "I bring you gifts, Christine," she had guessed that they were dresses for her. He would not intend her to wear that wedding gown quite yet: he would want a courtship, a ceremony long-planned.

Looking up, she saw the hideous half of his face covered once more with a mask as white as the wedding gown. "You wear your mask," she said. Then, hesitating a little, "Remove it – please, _monsieur_. How else shall I grow to love all your face, and you for your own self?"

Standing stock still, he made no move to do so. She had no desire to do it _for_ him, truly, no desire to reach up her hands again in Mme. Giry's swan-shape and uncover his half-monstrosity. But all the same she descended carefully from the high organ's perch, keeping her feet out in the way she had always been instructed in the _corps de ballet_, toes touching the ground before heels to walk mincingly along. He still did not move as she approached him, stepping around the packages he had strewn about, feeling an encroaching fear: before he had not lashed out at her hysteria, and yet he might some time in future reach the limits of his patience.

Her arm curved gently and she unconsciously stood on tiptoe, miming the true dance's actions, as she reached up to remove Erik's mask. Quick as gunfire his hand shot up to arrest her; then, just as quickly, he let go with a cry.

"Christine – Christine! Have I hurt you?"

"No," she said, ignoring the redness blooming at her wrist. For she had seen what he was trying to hide, even more than his hideous face: tears.

"I did –"

Her words were wildly reckless, spoken out of instinct. "Only by your abridgment of my freedom! _That_ –" referring to his iron grip "was nothing. Promise me I may come and go at will. I cannot live with you without that, Erik. I spent the day not knowing what I was permitted to do. Very soon the Opera shall be frantic."

He looked stricken. "If you come back to me I will promise you that. I would make you happy in any way I can, in any way at all!"

Of course, he did not mean it; he would not give her up, she knew. Perhaps when she had removed his mask for the first time, his hasty words of eternal binding had seemed to spring from the spur of the moment. The wedding dress, however, bespoke much longer planning. No. He would make her happy in any way he could, save one.

His trust in her promises was, in its own way, a noble sentiment, but she was not inclined to see it as such.


	3. Up Once More

Christine had not expected to find that Erik ever slept. He seemed never to eat. But he was asleep, there on a divan that had a few hours prior been covered with piles and piles of musical scores. She did not intend to wake him. The pocket-watch called it three o'clock, and that was three o'clock in the morning.

His mask had returned. It was a pity – a pity! She did not want him to remove it. It was too grotesque. Yet every scrap of decency she had demanded it. Had she screamed when she first saw his face? Yes (or she imagined she had, at any rate; she could not remember, it was all confused.) All the same, now she had only one goal in mind, though the rest of her life and her plans had been overturned – she _would_ desensitize herself to that face. Unused to sorting through other people's problems, she hardly knew what was guiding her to that decision, or what it would accomplish; she was driven by an instinctual kind of empathy that directed without explication.

She was too wise, now, to try and remove his mask without warning, however. Unsure of what to do, she paced. Oh, it was a delicate sort of walk she used, but all the same she looked just like Raoul or some other equally afflicted young gentleman thinking through their love-affairs.

Playing the organ to rouse him was discarded as too heavy-handed; she had nothing on which to cook a meal that might wake him with the scent. Although she _was_ quite hungry, having eaten nothing since he had brought her a meat pie from his shopping excursion, she did realize that it was utterly childish to wake him over the issue of the mask. Yet her resolution that it had to come off was firm, and she was impatient!

Finally, her steps drew close to the divan, and her passage seemed to stir him. His eyes opened quickly. He was unused to having another person around, another person to wake him, and therefore he slept lightly. Christine drew back, not knowing what to expect, but she was met with a momentary smile. It transformed Erik's face, or what was visible of it, from a perfect rake of a Don Juan Triumphant into a relaxed, cheerful thing. Almost as soon as she could draw breath to say something ridiculous - "It's good to see you smiling, sir," or "You seem happy this morning; I hope you remain so" – he seemed to catch himself, and composed it into its usual impassive mask.

"Oh no," she couldn't stop herself from saying, "I've never seen you smile before –" and then she stopped, realizing her forwardness.

He raised his good eyebrow. "You seem to wonder at that. Have I not enough to be unhappy about, Christine?" She could not contradict that. "Even dreams provide little happiness. After all, one must always wake from dreams." With that he rose to sit on the divan. Hesitatingly, she moved to alight beside him.

No, she determined, she was not imagining it: he was trembling, ever so slightly. Perhaps _shivering_ would be a better word, because he seemed not at all discomfited; his lips were set in a firm line, and his visible face as immobile as the mask that covered the other half.

"This –" she began to say _this mask,_ but stopped. "This is not a dream," she said. "I shall not disappear." Then, tremulously: "I would have you take off your mask."

His head snapped about so he could pin her with a stare, a stare that would have made little Jammes or Meg Giry run away screaming. Christine was suddenly thrilled: she would not run! Her blood pounded in her veins, suddenly, urged on by excitement. What ever her face revealed, however, it was not that. "You are white already," he said. "Do you know that I can still perfectly envision your last reaction? - and you have not even opened my packages or put on one of your new frocks yet. If you faint again, you shall not put one on till tomorrow."

How ridiculous! she thought. That he would be so concerned about the packages – but she could not contradict a madman, as she imagined him to be, though she could not think but that his madness was curable. "I'm no whiter than I ever am without stage-makeup on," she replied, "and I do not recall fainting. But I shan't, you know. I told you yesterday, or two days ago now."

Without asking further leave of him, she raised one hand slowly, drawing it up the breast of his slightly wrinkled evening coat, then placing it on his bare cheek, smoothing his thick unspoiled hair back. Finally, she moved it across his face, using her nails to pull the finely fitted mask off. It had been attached with the same kind of glue as was often used to secure false noses and beards in the opera; when she had removed it so quickly before, it must have hurt, and she was careful to loosen it first.

Erik did not stop her this time, and if she felt his lips brush the back of her hand as it fell back into her lap with the mask, neither of them mentioned it. She said "thank you," and, leaving the mask on the divan next to him, mounted the stairs to the organ and its bench and found her place in St. Augustine.

A few minutes later, she smelled tea. It seemed that he had come to her conclusion, that neither of them would be able to return to sleep. It was followed by breakfast: he did, it seemed, eat.

* * *

What Christine had found in the packages retrieved from the market for her was exquisite – dresses and all their accoutrements, tailored to her measurements. There were five, some more practical than others. All were startlingly luminous, pale almost to an extreme in Erik's dark home.

If they seemed pale there they were even more so in the darkness of the passages, the black walls reflected in the black water. It was morning at the _Opera Populaire_; Mme. Giry was warming up the _corps de ballet_ for their rehearsals, and while La Carlotta would almost certainly not have arisen at such a barbarous hour, the supporting parts were likely rehearsing as well, and the set dressers were certainly preparing the stage after the previous night's disheveling.

Though she was certain that Erik was trying to teach her properly how to get out of his home and up into the main part of the Opera, she had no head for it. All the turns and twists looked the same; they arrived at the sloped entrance where he had led her on his white horse, and she could not have led them back again.

Before long, they stood in a familiar hall, looking out into Christine's dressing room. The roses in it, sent by her myriad of admirers two nights before, were still there, drooping now without fresh water; it was dark, but her eyes were quite adjusted to such darkness after so long in the corridors.

"Remember that you promised me that you would return," he said, looking down into her face as though to divine whether she was deceiving him. "Can you remember the way, if I show you the lever that opens this door?"

"No," she admitted.

"Then – I dislike this greatly, not wishing to limit your freedom, but I must find you and take you away. You, however, may name the time. Declare it now, or address a letter to _O.G._ and send it through Mme. Giry –"

"My lessons," she said. "I thought they would continue."

Faint surprise registered on Erik's face, perhaps at her willingness to return to him so soon, then subsided. "Our lessons then," he said. "Tonight remain in your dormitory; anything else would invite suspicion. Tomorrow the lessons resume in my home. There will be no performance, I am certain. I shall find you tomorrow night before supper. Please be sure to attend to your father's candle then."

With that, he showed her the mirror's latch on passageway's side, and the place in the frame she might push to open it from her dressing-room, and was gone.

Alone once more, Christine looked around. Someone was sure to notice her new frock – weren't they? She was filled with doubts. How could she explain her absence? How could she describe where she had been? Had La Carlotta sung in the three nights she'd been gone, or had the opera been cancelled?

She sat in the darkness and developed her story. A message had come – a most urgent message from her aunt, who lived in a village not far from Paris. Her uncle was dying. She had gone to him, thinking only of that; she had not imagined that she would be gone so long, but of course she could not leave his bedside. Only one person would know that it all was false, that she had no living relatives; but Mme. Giry would hardly tell.

Rising again, she left her dressing room and found her way backstage, searching for Meg. She knew Meg would be frantic – and Jammes, of course, probably spreading rumors of the Ghost already! But she was met by a hubbub that could hardly be put down to only Meg's or even MM. André and Firmin's amazement at losing their second lead soprano in as many nights. The world seemed to know of her disappearance!

"_Mon Dieu!_ La Daaé!" gasped a man she had only ever been introduced to as 'Joscelin,' one of the male ballet dancers that occasionally graced the _Opera Populaire_'s stage. "La Daaé!"

Before she knew what was going on, she found herself borne before a crowd of people to the front of the stage, where rehearsals were in session. Rehearsals, yes, but not for _Hannibal: _they were not in costume at all, and the set had been cleared. Further productions had indeed been cancelled, it seemed. Astonished, and half-wondering what they were performing next, she blinked out through the bright stage lights to try and make out who Joscelin and the others were pressing her forward to see.

"Christine!" A young man's voice called from below. She tried to place it, to see his face, and only realized who he was when he vaulted up onto the side of the stage. It was M. le Vicomte de Chagny, and he seemed white with worry.

"_Monsieur_! I knew you were the patron of the _Opera Populaire,_ but it is no way to go on, running about on account of a chorus girl!" she said, not intending flippancy.

"Not for a mere chorus girl – for the chorus girl who sang like an angel, for the chorus girl whose scarf I fetched out of the sea," he said, putting his hands on her shoulders as though to convince himself that she was all right. "But you have been gone three days. Where were you? People do not simply disappear from their dressing rooms without a word! We have called the police after being unable to find you. _Hannibal_ had to be cancelled, for La Carlotta would not sing in an opera so obviously cursed! Where were you?"

Now her acting skills were put to the test. Christine feigned surprise. "But I _did_ leave a note, back in my dressing-room," she said. "What could have happened to it? It was a matter of such urgency, you see; I never meant to cause anyone worry! I received a message on the night I sang in La Carlotta's place; it said that my uncle was dying. Of course I had to go to him. I stayed by his bedside until he passed on, last night, and returned this morning – as you see."

She could tell that glances were being exchanged, both on-stage and off, where she could hardly see. "Your Scandinavian uncle?" the Vicomte asked.

"No," she said, suppressing a stutter. "My mother was French; her brother."

He seemed satisfied, thankfully, but it lasted only a moment. She begged weariness from her journey, declared that she would happily speak with any one who wished to question her the next day ("Oh, no, I am certain that won't be necessary," M. Firmin declared; looking down, she discovered her eyes adjusted enough to see him and several policemen standing just at the foot of the stage). It was no use: the Vicomte followed her as she slipped through the various people backstage.

Hearing his footsteps behind her, she walked as far as she thought she could bear without turning and asking his business; when she did turn, he was right on her heels. Before she could ask him anything, he spoke. "I was standing outside your room that night after you bade me leave," he said. "I waited for hours for you to come out. No one came in with a message, and you did not come out."

Squirming under his gaze, Christine dissembled: "It was a letter mixed in with the roses and things others had sent me. It had been sent that morning direct from my aunt. I must have slipped past you, _monsieur!_ For how else could I leave my dressing room? There is only one door, and no windows at all."

She had a point, and his eyes softened. He had never truly been suspicious, she decided – perhaps he was worried, perhaps that was the word for it. "Won't you call me Raoul, little Lotte?" he asked. "It makes me sad to think that things have changed so much between us."

"Raoul, then," she echoed. "But I am tired. If you wish to be of help to me, send for Meg Giry, the ballet girl. Perhaps men have no especial friends with whom they share their pains, but women do."

"Meg Giry is already here!" piped a voice from behind Raoul. Neither of them had noticed her approach: she was light on her feet. "Christine, Christine, Jammes was putting about that you had been taken by the Opera Ghost! And what a lark; you were only gone off to your uncle's! But I ought not to be such a flimsy little airhead. He died, didn't he? You weren't terribly close to him, or I can't imagine you were since you never saw him. But death is difficult!" And with that not-quite-somber platitude she somehow managed to propel her friend into the dressing-room and shut the Vicomte out. Meg Giry was a long way towards being able to arrange people just as she liked, quite as deftly as her mother did.

"Oh! Meg. I have so much to tell you," Christine began, without thinking. When she paused she saw her blunder; she ought to have simply asked her to take away some flowers, or asked her what happened when La Carlotta was asked to return to the _Opera Populaire_, or some other inconsequential thing. She could hardly tell the truth – but it was difficult to lie to Meg!

Then again, would Meg believe her? Perhaps Jammes believed in the Opera Ghost, and perhaps Meg did find him a convenient fiction to blame lost ribbons and torn costumes on. An entire girl being taken away was something entirely different. Not only taken for three days to his underground lair, but tutored before that in such a clever way that she believed him to be only her Angel of Music! And after all, she had not believed in the Angel of Music...

"Your uncle. You _weren't_ terribly close to him, were you?" Meg asked, picking at one of the dead flower arrangements halfheartedly.

"No," came the reply, "Not at all. I'd barely seen him; perhaps I'd never seen him after my father died, I think. But he was my last relative, and anyway I needed to go. I was frightened, don't you see?"

"Of what?"

"Oh – the crowds and the noise and the people and being a _prima donna_! It isn't that it isn't everything I'd ever dreamed of. It was only that it was so sudden. I couldn't let it turn my head, Meg. But I do wish I knew what happened to that note."

Of course there was no note; that would ensure that Meg wouldn't be able to find it, however much she peeked under the desk and into the cupboards and asked whether Christine was certain, absolutely certain, that she'd left it just so. And that deflected things, for a while. They were comfortable together, Christine and Meg, from having lived together in the dormitories of the Opera since they were very young, and if Meg was jealous of Christine's good fortune, she didn't show it.


	4. Nothing Unreasonable

The dormitories for the ballet-girls were not small or uncomfortable, but they were after all dormitories, with the cots lined up one after the other. At night, no one could stay up reading later than any one else; there were no curtains between the beds to block the light. Whispers carried far. Girlish secrets, therefore, were reserved for the hubbub of backstage.

That was what had made Christine so certain that her Angel of Music was truly an angel: if he was not, surely every one in the dormitory would have heard his divine song...?

As she lay in bed, having been assigned a dressing-room but not yet turned out of the dormitories to find her own flat as La Daaé, she found it difficult to sleep. It was not that she wasn't tired; she'd been awake since the early morning. Something else was missing – and when she finally heard it, she knew what it was.

Softly, ever so softly, an organ's music could be heard (or she could hear it, anyway, and little Jammes in the cot on her right shifted uncomfortably in her sleep). The chords were as haunting as they ever were: when she was young, she had not understood the way they disharmonized and then, ultimately, unified into a culmination more powerful for its preceding clashes. The music was not always the same, but certain themes unified it. Now she was certain that what she heard was Erik playing his great underground organ; the music, however, was still not anything she recognized.

It was strange, she thought, that even after discovering the hideous face hidden behind the half-mask that organ music was still welcome to her. Even after discovering the man's temper! But there had to be something to explain his situation. People were not merely born out of the ooze beneath the _Opera Populaire_! And deformed though he was, the Phantom was indeed a person. Who were his mother and his father? How had he come to live there? He could not be more than thirty, and she would judge him younger than that, from the trim figure he cut in his habitual evening wear. The wedding dress he had kept on the mannequin, the little figurine in his miniature Opera that wore her face – why had she so obsessed him, why, why, why? Why did he choose (and he did choose, she was certain) to remain so apart from the rest of human society? Children are unkind, but adults, in Christine's experience, were not usually so bad.

There was one thing certain: whether she willed it or not, she had unlimited time to discover the answers to those questions. Even if Erik himself had not made clear his wishes, even if she did not believe him to be capable of enforcing them, there was something about him that drew her back to his side; she would acquiesce to his demands of companionship, with enough pleading, with enough time to adjust to the idea of living with that monstrous face.

Jammes would say she had been bewitched, and Meg would say she was losing her head. Christine did not know which was more true. It was only the same feeling that had kept her in line when she was being tutored, as a child, by her Angel of Music. Uncanniness seemed to hang about Erik like a shroud, and his voice as well. It was that uncanniness that captured her imagination, piqued her interest, drew her in to him time and again.

Composing various scenarios for the Phantom's childhood and for how he came to live beneath the opera-house, she drifted to sleep. The organ music, which would have seemed eerie to any other person, merely helped lull her into peaceful dreams.

* * *

It was a shock to awake as early as she was required to, after keeping her own hours in the Phantom's home; however, as long as she was living in the dormitories, Christine Daaé would be expected to keep the ballet dancers' hours. When she was given the _prima donna_'s salary, then she would be left alone.

Having woken, however, and having attended a morning practice with the _corps de ballet_, she was in a perfect position to hear all about the letters which had suddenly appeared for MM. Firmin and André, the Vicomte de Chagny and Carlotta. They had all been sealed with red wax and a death's head. They had all made various outrageous demands. They had all been signed 'O. G.'

It took some strength to not pry too deeply, to pretend this meant nothing to her. She could not hear the voices of the foursome, after they met and exclaimed over each note, or determine what was in them. But after they left the stage to make way for the singers, Mme. Giry pulled her aside.

"I was better able to hear what those letter said than you, but you ought to know," she whispered. "I ought not to know where you were these three nights – I do not want to know. But this, you must. The Phantom has demanded that _Il Muto_ be produced, and that you play the Comtesse's part. He wishes you to be _prima donna_, girl. And he has warned the Vicomte away. One piece of advice only: do not cross him in that, _cherie._ He will not take kindly to it."

With that she was gone, leaving Christine with more questions than before. An unpleasant frisson ran up her spine at the word 'demanded,' at the warning not to cross Erik. His temper... but she had only ever seen that temper when she had attempted to pull off his mask, and that was surely reasonable!

And yet, Carlotta had so conveniently marched out and left the lead soprano's part open. The catalyst, the scenery's unexpected fall, could be coincidental. Or, it could not. Didn't Erik have trapdoors, hidden doors, all about? Wasn't he familiar with the opera-house, and with its equipment? He could have so easily manufactured such an accident!

The thought was chilling, and it followed her all day. No one knew quite what to do with her. MM. Firmin and André seemed to be trying to decide what to do with Carlotta's flouncing and vocal unhappiness; M. le Vicomte de Chagny – well, she did keep away from him, as long as she could. He caught up to her finally just as she was walking with Meg, about to go to the chapel and light her father's candle, to meet Erik and be taken down to his home once again. Meg danced away, giggling, just as he came up.

"Christine – Christine! Can't you spare a moment for an old friend? I've been trying to pin you down all day!" he said, loping up next to her on his long legs.

"I'm going to the chapel to light a candle for my father," she said. "I do it every night. I may be some time. _Monsieur_-"

"Raoul –"

"Raoul, then. May I see you in the morning? I feel very ill tonight."

"You were very ill last night, Christine, or tired, or some such. If I were another sort of man, I would think you didn't want to see me," he quipped, obviously aiming for a lighthearted tone. He didn't quite manage it.

"Oh! No, never think that," she said. "Little Lotte is the same as ever. Can you not trust me at all?"

Clearly abashed, he backtracked and left her on her own. The exchanged disconcerted her, reminded her of how unsafe the chapel really was. After all, anyone might go down there. What would happen if they came face-to-face with Erik? More to the point, what would happen if Erik came face-to-face with _them_?

Useless, useless, useless, she thought, ridiculing herself for too-worried thoughts. She was already passing under the sign for the chapel, into the room with its circular window and painted angels and rows of candles. Here she was safe! Here she could make everyone else safe. No matter how destructive his designs might be, the Phantom would listen to her, she was sure. If she would never ask him to let her go, he had said, he would do anything to make her happy; it would make her happy to not see mischief about the opera-house.

She knelt, lit her father's candle, prayed: then, just as she whispered 'amen' to herself, he was there.


	5. Vows

They were silent too long, Christine thought, traveling back through the corridors. Surely he knew that she would have heard of his letters? Mme. Giry seemed to know him – surely he knew that she could have gotten information from that source! The silence was so chilling because it was so atypical. Always her interactions with the Phantom had taken place with song, whether beautiful or terrible or both at once.

"I had much rather be the page boy," she said, quietly, "For Carlotta will not suffer me to take the lead. It will take more influence than you have with these new managers to arrange such a change."

She spoke just as they arrived in his chambers, and quickly regretted it. He turned to her, his face composed. "You think I have not the influence to make the change? Perhaps not now. But you must not undervalue yourself, Christine. Your voice inspires me. It is more than Carlotta's has ever done."

"Say you will not do anything too terrible! Say it! Mme. Giry -"

"Yes, what did Mme. Giry say?"

Those words pulled her up short. "She knows all about you," Christine said slowly. "She is the one who told me the roses were from you. She is the one who told me what was in those letters you sent, and she also told me not to cross you – not to see Raoul!"

Erik paced back to his organ, up the steps and behind the flickering flames of his ever-burning candelabras, then down once more. "I must teach them that this is my opera-house," he said, half to himself. "I cannot, surely you see that I cannot, allow them to go on as it is! M. Lefevre knew that I was to be obeyed. I ask nothing that is not easily within their power, nothing unreasonable."

Were I the manager of the _Opera Populaire,_ I would think that paying a salary to a ghost was unreasonable, Christine thought. She did not voice it. "But no-one will be hurt when you teach them that. Promise me! Promise me, Erik!" She strode to his side as she spoke, put her hands on his arms, his shoulders. Perhaps, were she more experienced, she would have consciously realized that her closeness was the strongest possible incentive she could give him to fulfill her wishes. She did not realize this, and looked up at his half-face and half-mask all innocence.

"I cannot promise you that."

Quickly, ever so quickly, he moved to cover up that statement. "I use machineries for my tricks. I am only a man. I can do no more than Progress allows me to do. Gears and levers and pulleys fail, sometimes. I can make no promise!"

"Then do it without machines," she said, adamant, moving her hands up to his face once more. She took care to keep them well away from his mask. Though he tried to hide it, this time she definitely noticed that he followed her hand, starved for touch, almost like a cat butting its head against its owner. It was subtler than that, of course, and he would never have admitted it (she knew that much, however little she did know about the Phantom). It was not really endearing in a man whom she felt certain was dangerous, very dangerous – but perhaps it softened her a little.

He took a deep, noticeable breath. "I will not harm any one of my own choice. If an accident happens, I will try to stop it. That is the most I can promise you, Christine. But you _will_ have the part."

It was, perhaps, really the best he could do, she decided. "Thank you," she said, and found that it was not difficult to smile in gratitude.

* * *

When he was playing his organ, when he was composing his _Don Juan Triumphant_, there was nothing else in the world that mattered, Erik felt. Not even Christine Daaé! That was a thought he relished. She had too much power over him. He had sworn, once, that no one would have him on a leash like a dog, no one would tell him to do this or that or the other –

His thoughts subsided into nothingness as he raised his hands to the keyboard once more, threw himself into a particularly difficult passage that he could not quite make right. There: the minor chord, then the major scale that would lift the audience's hearts, played with the violins first and then an awesome blend of the deepest instruments that would showcase the final duet. Aminta's soprano voice would flutter over the highest notes there, alone in its heights. Don Juan would fade into the accompaniment. Then what would make it _his_ triumph? Aminta's joy, yes, but what of the sometime-hero?

He had huge chunks of the central pieces to work out yet, the ballets, a few rough places, but without the end he could not finish them. Sitting at the now-silent organ, the Phantom could not create, could not complete his music, not even with Christine all unknowingly singing Aminta's part as a warm-up, not even with such a glorious voice to inspire him. And she would never be cast in that role, when the opera was finished, if she was not _prima donna_ – and she would never become _prima donna_ while La Carlotta strutted the stage – but she had tied his hands near entirely!

"What are you writing? I recognize it somehow," came the very girl's voice behind him, startling him. He betrayed nothing, except perhaps in the form of a sharp indrawn breath.

"It is my life's work," he said, not turning to face her. It was becoming more difficult to do so. He never knew when she would ask him to remove his mask, or remove it for him. Without it he felt all too exposed, both figuratively and literally. He could hardly bear to look at his own face, the skin sagging and red, his eye goggling without its lashes, patches of skin rough and flaking. He did not know what it betrayed. He could control the rest, but that too-wide eye: what could someone read in it? If they could stand its sight. "When it is finished and performed, I shall walk deeper into the catacombs beneath the city than man has ever gone. Then I shall die."

This time it was her gasp that gave her away, audible only because of her closeness. Slowly she knelt beside his bench, her hands trailing along its edges to rest, folded, near his thigh. He could feel their warmth, smell her scent, a simple concoction of rosewater. Usually he did not allow himself to dwell on it, to notice it even, because for one so often alone it was too heady to be borne. He was irritable, then, and careless, and let himself do so.

"I hope you will not finish it soon," she said.

He laughed, bitterly, feeling the sound come from his gut. "You do not need to be polite with me. I know what you would wish to happen, though you put a brave face towards your fate. I am not so blind." He adored her in the word's fullest sense, as choirs sing _te adoremus_ in their hymns to God. She had given him enough, too much even, since she had come. More than to possess her, he longed to be possessed, to be filled with the beauty of her song – but it became increasingly clear, as he stared at the ivory keys of his organ and his own long fingers that rested upon them, that this would never happen. She would lie to him, and they would be pretty lies, but he would know the difference between that and true acceptance.

She was hurt by his words, and he did not understand why. He could see it in her face, in the moue on her lips, in the sudden glassiness of her eyes; the reason for it, though, was beyond him. If he could comfort her! If he could take them back! She spoke. "Do you misjudge me so much?"

"There is no fault in your feelings, _mademoiselle_," he said, returning his eyes to the unfinished score before him. "Were I in your place, I would no doubt feel the same. I have been told so often enough."

"Not by me!"

"I deceived you. I came to you as the Angel of Music, used your father's memory most despicably. You hate my tricks, say I am not to use them to convince MM. André and Firmin to cast you as Comtesse, and yet they are what convinced _you_ that I was no villain! My need for you overtakes my weak will, so I build my pretty fantasies and to convince you that they are real I lie. I lie, and your feelings are no more than the fruits of those lies, whatever you may believe!"

He could not see Christine's expression and did not want to. To cause such pain to her was madness, but he spoke only the truth; she had to learn it, or be sorrier in future, when she had foolishly done some foolish thing to bind herself to him. He could not decide which he wanted more, her forever or her to run away and never return to the man she so obviously considered a dangerous lunatic. He could never decide; that was the reason he could never end their lessons.

"Erik," she said, making his breath catch in his throat. There were few people that had ever used his name, fewer still who had ever spoken it with no hint of torment in their tone. She was one. His intellect rejected her pity, but on another level he could not help but accept it and rejoice in it. It was so welcome after so long with no civil words at all that he could not possibly reject it. "Tell me who made you this way."

Jarred by the unexpected question, he was silent.

"Is there no one, no one person? I know nothing of you, yet you know my life, my father, the traveling fairs I sang at – all my secrets. But something convinced you, once, that no matter how beautifully you sang and played and painted," (ah, he realized, she had seen his miniatures; he had not intended that, but then they were laid out for any one to notice) "all this was useless without a perfect face. I would like to know what it was."

He did not intend to answer, did not want to answer, did not want to describe his mother's helpless horror at her deformed infant and the depredations of _his_ traveling fairs, the way Mme. Giry had helped him, the way he learned the ways of the world. It came spilling out nonetheless. He did not cry, did not even turn on the bench to face Christine. He only spoke into the organ's pipes and _Don Juan Triumphant_'s score, slowly retrieving memories he had long ago tossed into the rubbish bin.

When he was finished, he thought perhaps she would go, satisfied. She stood. But rather than leave she sat next to him on the bench, her legs on its opposite side, near-forcing him to look at her merely by her proximity. She was warm; she was sweet; she was alive. Here she did not want anything of him. Just as her pain had been foreign to him, so was this. Why did she choose to torture herself?

"You did not deserve it," she said, "but you must know that not all people are like them." Her hands on his face again, soothing, one on the unblemished left cheek and the other at the back of his neck. He could not think of anything else, having already let himself luxuriate in her presence. His eyes slipped closed, although he knew what would come next: her nails prying at the spirit glue that held his mask, removing it. Then she would disappear, repulsed by the ugliness and unable to remain but still somehow seeking it out, just as she had each time before: off to her book or her supper or some other thing where she could ignore his deformity.

The nails did come, but she did not leave. Hardly daring to move, Erik opened his eyes once more. She was looking at him, unflinching.

Grief struck him, irrational and unstoppable. Deep sobs came from the same place his laughter had originated, wrecking his self control, destroying his stony façade. And miraculously, as slowly as though she were frightened of being rebuffed, Christine raised her arms to cradle his head as he cried on her shoulder. She spoke as she did so, but he could not tell what she was saying, if it mattered at all. Forgetting himself, he reached out to encircle her in one arm, holding onto her like a little boy holds a stuffed animal.

The tears subsided nearly as quickly as they came, chased away by the ministrations of her fingers at his temples, chased away by her presence. He tried to compose himself to speak, to apologize, but the words would not come. Though once he might have fancied himself an eloquent man, though cloistered away from intelligent discourse, now he could think of nothing to say but bitter, sarcastic quips. He would not see that pain in her face again – would _not_!

She must have sensed his thoughts, though she could not see his face. "Shhh," she said, the mindless sound one makes to silence a baby. Her hands played across his shoulders, the back of his neck, though now he only shook with released emotion rather than crying. "Shhh," and pressed her lips to his left temple. "The past is gone," she said, whispering in his ear.

The frisson that danced down his spine was surely not intended by Christine; surely she was trying to be kind, not inflammatory, with her kiss. But all the same – "I do not know if I believe you fully, now," he said, as formally as he could, "but if you went on... perhaps you know your motives best."

He regretted it as she stood, smiled at him with what could not be counterfeit pleasure. She had nearly draped herself across his lap. It was a different kind of intimacy than she had initiated before, an intimacy that could not be overlooked or brushed aside as standing too close could, as her feather-touches on his face when she took of his mask could. When she said "I do," he saw in his mind's eye the wedding gown he had saved for her. Now he was not keeping it for irony's sake, he thought.


	6. Il Muto

Christine was not altogether surprised when La Carlotta's voice mysteriously gave out on the opening night of _Il Muto._ No one was, after the Opera Ghost's threats, except perhaps MM. Firmin and André – and the latter more than the former, fancying himself a man of the arts and therefore paying particular attention to the superstitions of his hobby. Erik had not told her what he planned, but they had practiced the Comtesse's part whenever she was not in rehearsal. She thought that surely someone would hear his organ bellowing out the most important lines of accompaniment, but no one ever did. Each night she found him, and later slipped back into the dormitory for sleep, exhausted by the triple burden of her part, the ballet practices she was still expected to attend, and her singing.

No one was surprised, either, at her skill at the role, or at the ovation she received. The loudest shouting came from box five and, startled that it should come from that quarter, she had tried her hardest to make out the occupant through the stage lights. All she caught was a glimpse of golden-brown hair: not Erik. He would not be pleased with that, she thought, and wondered where he had heard the performance.

She was not to wonder long. As soon as the wig-maker had safely removed the Comtesse's fabulous headdress and the costumer had replaced her ridiculously large skirts with Christine's own smaller ones, all life seemed to vanish from backstage. Work was over for the night; the singers and dancers were flirting with their admirers, and the rest of the crew were on their way back to their homes and families. Well, she had told the Vicomte de Chagny that she could not possibly sup with him that night, for she had to rest: she could not look for company there. Thinking she saw a flash of Meg's golden head, Christine lingered backstage to look for her, wanting a friendly (but not slavishly adoring) face to speak with.

"_Ange,_" said a deep voice behind her, a voice she would know anywhere. A deep red rose tied with black ribbon fell to the ground at her feet, tossed gently over her shoulder.

"Erik!" she exclaimed, turning, pleasure evident. "I did not disappoint you?"

"If you had, I would not have greeted you so warmly," he said, and she could imagine his half-masked smirk, though she could not see it. He stood in the shadows, and she was sure a deep-hooded robe hid his face. "But here is not the place for it; it would not do for us to be caught! I shall be waiting for you at Apollo's Lyre."

It took her a moment to understand what he was saying: Apollo's Lyre, the great statue in the opera-house's rooftop garden. He was gone even as recognition of the name sparked. It was a reasonable place to suggest they meet: she still could not find her way in the basement's canals and corridors with any proficiency, and since it was snowing outside, it was highly unlikely that anyone would be there. It also explained _why_ he disappeared: she needed to change into something warmer if she didn't want to freeze.

A few minutes later, she had wiped off the worst of her makeup and properly clothed herself for the out-of-doors; she hardly thought that the Phantom would mind the patches of rouge and kohl she'd missed, and she was anxious to speak with him. She could never have learned to sing half as well without him, and for all he frightened her sometimes, she was sure he had kept his pact. No lasting harm had come to Carlotta's voice – why, Christine could hear her wailing all up and down her extremely large range even as she slipped through the opera-house's corridors to find the stairway that led to the roof!

Though she did not realize it till she was nearly at the garden's door, she was also excited that he had summoned her outside. She had never known him to venture out of the opera-house's environs, except on shopping visits – certainly he had never offered to go on a walk and take the air. Perhaps this meant he was changing, she thought. Perhaps he had begun to realize that no one who mattered would jeer at his mask and his misfortune. Perhaps!

At first she didn't see him when she left the opera-house, as the garden was lit only by moonlight. Then she saw way some of the stars were blocked by his dark form. "You approve of me," she said confidently.

He faced her. "You knew already that I approve of you. I approve of your _performance._"

She laughed. Her laugh was more musical, to his ears, than anything he could possibly write. "Very well, _Monsieur_ Wit! But was that all you summoned me here for? In which case..." she made to go back down the stairs, teasing.

"No!" Erik's voice was adamant enough that, for a moment, she thought he didn't realize it was a joke. It softened, though, as he continued to speak. "I had not come here in a long time, and I wanted to show you the secret way back down. Also, I wished to see Paris from above. I thought you would appreciate it."

It was a half-thoughtless gesture, really: though she rarely referred to the statue by name, Christine had lived half her life as part of the _Opera Populaire,_ and she had seen the view many times. All the same, she walked to the edge of the roof and looked down over the railing.

Maybe, she thought, she had forgotten how truly breathtaking it was – or maybe it was only that Erik was so clearly appreciative of it. He had gone quiet in the way she had grown to recognize was true admiration, in him.

"I'm sorry – the view is beautiful – but Carlotta will get her voice back, won't she? You did promise me. I swear that after that, no more talk of tonight's events shall come from me. You never say anything not to do with opera, and if you brought me to the roof for such a sentimental reason, perhaps tonight ought to be an exception to that rule." It was not strictly true that he never said anything not to do with opera, but it was true enough for recent days, and after all it would not exactly be politic to bring up the day he had told her of his childhood.

"Yes," he said, after a time. "Yes, I only put a minor irritant in her throat spray. Her voice will return quickly, although the embarrassment may prove more of a limit on her than anything else thereafter."

"Good."

They stood in awkward silence for a long moment, shoulder to shoulder at the garden's rail. It transmuted into a comfortable silence, thankfully – a companionable silence, perhaps. Christine, seeing that Erik was entranced by Paris' lights and the brilliancy of the constellations from so high up, studied his profile rather than the city's streets. She stood to his left, from which angle his mask was only a sliver of white lining a straight nose and setting off dark hair.

"Here," she said, suddenly filled with elation after her triumphant night. "You haven't seen this yet!" Scampering across the snow-filled courtyard, she ran to the statue known as Apollo's Lyre itself. It depicted the god on galloping Pegasus' back, playing (what else?) his lyre. Just behind the god's broad back, however, the winged horse's haunches and tail formed a platform wide enough for a child to have a picnic on or for adults to stand on. It was easy enough to climb up on, the outstretched hind legs making a convenient stair.

"Come up!" she told Erik. "This is the highest you can get without breaking your neck."

Somehow it surprised her that he came, vaulting up much more easily than she had. It certainly discomfited her to have him so close, pressed up against her as he had to be to fit on the small standing-space and hold onto the statue's wings for balance. She had not climbed on the statue since she was much younger, and it had seemed bigger then.

"I've got you," he said, his mouth disconcertingly close to her ear. "I won't let you fall." One hand snaked around her waist as the other gripped at the stone; he must have misread her discomfort for worry at the height.

"I know you wouldn't," she said, realizing the truth of things. "It's the last thing I would expect from you."

Suddenly Christine could hardly catch her breath. There were butterflies in her stomach, just as there were every time she went on-stage. Oh, she thought, though I know I am safe the height must be affecting me! But that was not true, and she knew it. It was Erik's presence that was making her anxious.

"Are you too cold?" he asked, that angelic voice so close and insinuating once more. "You are all stiff! You cannot catch ill after such a triumph. It would be insufferable."

"Oh! No," she replied. "Not cold." As though she were indeed chilled, however, she settled back a little further, leaning the length of her body against Erik's. It did not help banish those strange sensations, but she could hardly help herself. Her heart beat fast, surely faster than it ought, and closer in her throat than she recalled it usually being. She knew what she felt! She had heard the other members of the _corps de ballet_ discuss their lovers often enough! It was not right, not what a good girl ought to feel for any man – but she could hardly help it. The arm he held around her waist was more than a man ought to touch a good girl, she reasoned.

"Perhaps – perhaps I am too cold after all," she allowed.

"Very well," he said, and released her, inching backwards to find his footing on the Pegasus' hind legs. A certain tone of hurt was in his voice. Had he known what she was thinking?

"Erik."

The word got his attention, and he looked up at her, raising one hand to help her down. She took it, and as she stepped lightly off the statue, did not relinquish it. "Thank you," she said. "For keeping your promise, but for everything else, too, and for the care you take of me."

His face, though still impassive, softened a little, and he led her by the hand to the secret door of which he'd spoke. Just before Christine slipped through its opening, following his lead, she glanced behind her and thought she saw a glimpse of gold. Looking again, however, it was gone, so she turned back to her maestro and his passageways.


	7. Bal Masqué

Christmas came and went with little fuss. _Il Muto_'s run was unusually long, with La Daaé in the leading female role: there was a novelty in a ballet girl who dared depose the reigning _diva_, and everyone in Paris had to see her for themselves, it seemed. MM. André and Firmin were in raptures, though that might have been more from the esteem and social invitations that the sudden popularity of the _Opera Populaire _brought in than anything else. They were seen in the best known _salons_. M. Firmin paid his addresses to the spinster daughter of a family with old money, a family that would never have smiled upon him before he became the manager of 'Paris' brightest jewel.'

But with _Il Muto's_ run over there would be no more productions until the new year, which would begin with _Faust, _and either Carlotta or Christine singing Margarita's part; the future was as yet unplanned, but it was sure to be bright. Without productions Christine saw Erik less that usual, always enough to reassure him that she would not shun him but little more than that. He was exceedingly formal after the night Carlotta's voice gave out, always stepping away, always treating her with the utmost courtesy, never letting her in for a moment. She half-wondered why, but it certainly made it easier to ignore the butterflies that persisted whenever he came too near.

Now, on one of those rare days when she was not expected at ballet practice (she had not yet been released from it, though Mme. Giry had intimated she would be, if she played Margarita in the next production) she sat in a new room that M. André had ordered be given to her – her! – as living-quarters. She was not to live in the dormitories any more. He had wanted her to take a flat, but she refused, claiming that her life was in the opera-house and she had no friends outside it to entertain. Her reasons were perhaps more complicated than that in reality, but she could hardly describe her lessons, could hardly explain that her voice tutor was none other than the Opera Ghost.

In Christine's hands lay a small invitation of creamy, heavy paper, tipped in gold. It was the sort of card that ladies received, that she had seen Carlotta receive, that her father had occasionally garnered when he was still alive. She had never had one herself. She knew the contents quite well, having memorized them: her managers invited her to a _bal masqué_ to ring in the new year.

There was a second note, too. It had been given to her shortly after the first, nearly a month ago, when she was still back in the dormitories. She knew its contents also, and knew that it was from the Vicomte de Chagny. He requested the honor of escorting her.

To the first note she had replied _Thank you, I shall certainly come._ To the second she had said nothing, hoping the matter would resolve itself; the Vicomte, however, was not so easily rebuffed. Finally she had given in, saying nothing of her decision to Erik. He would know, yes, but she could not bring herself to discuss it with him. There would surely be an unpleasant scene.

Now, sitting in her chamber, Christine felt all the awkwardness of her situation. She was in a new room, a room that bore no traces of home on its white walls: she had never had walls to decorate before. She had a new dress to put on, and she would be helping Meg Giry with a dress of her own, but she was still unsure of its fit and the way the fabric would lie. She was to be escorted by Raoul (the name was strange on her tongue: it had been a long time since they were children together) and she still felt awkward around him. The other girls of the opera-house had been irritating her for days now, dropping ungraceful hints about little girls who became entwined with the aristocracy. The insinuation was that she would end up no better than a prostitute – although some of them thought the opposite, that she would be more like Cinderella.

Oh, yes, she knew the awkwardness of her situation. No one could possibly blame her for wanting to keep Erik out of it! He would make things even worse. She would never in a million years be able to glide gracefully through the evening if she knew he was waiting, ill-tempered, to ask her what she was doing on Raoul's arm.

Meg came and rescued her from her thoughts for a little while, as she laced stays and Christine buttoned her into a costume representing an ice queen - but when they were both dressed and masked, she knew she had to venture out to meet her escort. Preparing herself for anything, either a terribly uncomfortable or a wonderful night, she stepped out her door in Meg's tow.

"Exquisite" was Raoul's first word to her, obviously referring to her costume – a gauzy confection of palest pink, accented only by a gold locket holding her father's miniature (the only truly fine piece of jewelry she owned, from back when she was not just a ballet girl but the daughter of the virtuoso _M. Daaé_) and her beaded mask. The mask was not tied with ribbons but only suspended on a stick. It would have been foolish for her to try and hide her identity, after all: she was too well-known, and a mask one could easily set down was more comfortable.

For his part, Raoul was dressed in his own navy uniform, his dark-blue mask tied firmly on and his golden-brown hair in a neat queue down his back. "Hiding in plain sight," he said, seeing her appraise him; he was well-pleased with his idea. "No one would expect a man to go to a masked ball as himself!"

If that was all the conversation he intended to make, Christine supposed it would be a pleasant evening. It did begin pleasantly, too, as she greeted those people she could recognize (the managers Firmin and André fondly, Piangi cordially, Carlotta perfunctorily). The orchestra was already playing, and soon enough the floor was filled with dancing couples.

Raoul, who had taken care not to be recognized, came to claim her hand as soon as there were enough people dancing that they would not be obvious. At first it was pleasant enough: he had learned to dance from good teachers, as fine as any that might tutor a young nobleman, and was tolerant of her missteps. She had not ever properly danced, only practiced with other girls and whirled about in a ballet interpretation of a waltz. She found she enjoyed it.

Then she made the mistake of saying "Come, Raoul, we must have some conversation if we are to dance."

He broke his oh-so-proper dance frame to glance at her. She could not read his eyes. "I have tried to understand something about you for some time now," he said, measuring his words carefully. "I have wanted to know why you never seem to have time for me, or for any one except Meg Giry on occasion. But more than that, for anyone can be busy –" he swept her into a spin, then arrested it just when he ought. "I have wanted to know who this Erik is, and why you hold secret assignations with him on the rooftops when you say you must be sleeping."

Christine nearly stopped dancing; indeed, she would have had Raoul been a weaker leader. Suddenly the golden head in Box Five made sense to her: who else would MM. André and Firmin give it to but their new patron? But then she had thought she saw things again backstage, again at Apollo's Lyre. That must have been Raoul as well. "You followed me!" she accused him.

"Only when I saw you speak, to yourself I thought! I was curious. But this man, Christine. Who is he?"

"You haven't any right to question me," she said, hearing an unpleasant note of petulance in her voice. "I shall meet with whoever I choose! I'm sorry if I caused you worry, but clearly no damage has been done, then or in the month that's followed."

Raoul was clearly unconvinced. Christine did not even need to see his face to know it. If it had been any other man, she would not be concerned, but _le Vicomte de Chagny_! The patron of the _Opera Populaire_! And she knew that there was jealousy in his voice, in his questions. Why else would he remember it, so long after the fact?

But he nodded and let it pass. "My apologies, Lotte. I only was thinking of your safety. You must know that."

She did not respond, and he seemed to take her silence as assent, for which she was grateful.

After that dance Christine escaped into Piangi's hands, then danced with a succession of opera-lovers, some of them monetary supporters of the _Opera Populaire_ and others not. The excitement of the masks began to wear off as she realized that no one's identity was truly secret. It was all an elaborate ruse, a pretense to allow people to do exactly as they wished. After all, any gossiper could be silenced with a simple "O! But it could not have been me, for I was not dressed like _that_!"

Just as she settled into the simple routine of the ball, chatting with people and avoiding Raoul's glances, she was upset again. The doors flew open – not the doors to the outside of the opera-house, but the doors to the _inside_, the doors that opened on nothing but the theater itself. Standing in them was a man dressed all in red, affecting a death's head mask. The mask, however, did not hide his identity either. She knew all too well that it was Erik.

There was something compelling about him, about the dramatic manner of his entrance. The room watched as he descended the staircase and threw down a leather folio, crammed with papers, like a gauntlet before M. André. There was absolute silence for a moment, as the orchestra realized no one was dancing.

"I have written you an opera," he said. "_Don Juan Triumphant_ is its title. Enclosed in the folio also are my instructions on how it is to be cast and produced. You have not followed my orders with regards to the running of my opera very closely. I hope that you shall mend your ways."

André's eyes grew as large as dinner plates when he realized that this was the Opera Ghost in the flesh. The room was silent no longer: rather, it was filled with murmurs of people who had caught on whispering the truth to those who had not.

"Mlle. Daaé, _mon ange,_" he said, dismissing André with a simple turn of his head. "I shall offer you this now, so these foolish men may not rescind it: you shall play the _prima donna _role in any music I write, including this." Slowly, he made her a courtly bow and caught up her hand to kiss.

Seeing the room's eyes turn to her, she nervously smiled and nodded. This was different again from any Erik she had seen before. He was in public now. More than that, however, he was performing a role – a dashing role fit to belong in one of their operas. Even his costume, though he ostensibly was dressed as 'Red Death,' was fit for a dandy. "I shall do my best not to disappoint," she responded softly.

Then she made the mistake of looking closely at his face. His eyes were possessive, not quite angry but serious. "Dance with me," he ordered.

And in a twisted version of Cinderella's story, they did dance, the orchestra shaken into playing once more by his words. No one else joined them on the floor for what seemed like an interminable amount of time. Erik was not as effortlessly excellent a dancer as Raoul, but he knew enough, no doubt another of Mme. Giry's legacies. The music behind them was incongruous, a playful tune, but the dance itself...

"I will hold to our pact," he said abruptly, speaking in a low voice so no one else could hear, "but you _will_ be singing Aminta's part. There will be no 'accidents' for Carlotta. I have another role for her."

"This is an excellent way to convince them."

He was silent, then, almost until the dance ended. As the violinists finished the last few lines, he bent his head to whisper in her ear just as he had that night upon Apollo's Lyre (Christine tried not to think of it, tainted as it was now with the idea of an invisible spy: she was shamed, _shamed_!). "The Vicomte ought to know better than to escort you anywhere. One of my instructions was that he was to leave you alone. You ought to intimate as much to him. You bound yourself to me the moment you took off my mask, little Delilah."

With that the music rested, and he led her off the floor to be deposited with Meg Giry. As he let her hand go, Christine felt something small and heavy slip into it. "Remember that this is _my_ opera-house," he warned the crowd, speaking softly but audibly as he re-ascended the staircase. "You shall produce my opera, and you shall follow my instructions. I do not ask too much of you."

A burst of flame sprang suddenly up beneath his feet and engulfed him. The Phantom was gone.

The room burst into conversation. Christine glanced up, and her eyes lit on a familiar figure in navy blue. Raoul was looking right at her, his mouth set in an unhappy line, his brows knit. The moment their eyes locked she looked down again – but that inscrutable stare bothered her even when she could no longer see him.

There was one more thing. She opened the hand that had Erik had held, that he had palmed something into.

It was a simple gold ring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all will forgive me for that oh-so-cliché 'mon ange.' In this chapter Erik plays his role of Phantom to the hilt, and such things are part of that role – that is, it seemed a good signifier that here is the masterful, frighteningly seductive Webber Phantom.


	8. Unmasked

The ball was not over for all the guests, but it was most decisively over for Christine Daaé. "You've gone white," Meg told her, grasping her arm. "We must go. You don't want to hear all the questions..."

It was true: she would have been mobbed if she had stayed much longer. As it was, Meg led her out. The crowd parted for them. The Vicomte left with MM. André and Firmin shortly afterward, leaving their guests to gossip and stew about what exactly happened – and who exactly Red Death was.

"Now," Meg said, gently pushing Christine into a chair in her new chamber, "tell me everything."

Christine laughed, but cut it short when she realized her friend didn't see the humor. "I can't," she said. "It's not that I don't want to. But – oh, God! I must go see Erik. I have to _now._"

"No! Why is it so urgent, and who's Erik, anyway?"

"He told me he would die when his opera was finished. Well, Meg, his opera is finished, isn't it?"

Her blue eyes widened. "Erik is the _Opera Ghost_?"

"Yes! I don't know why I didn't realize. He was so strange tonight; I thought he was only playing a role, but..." Christine made for the door, only to be blocked once more by her friend.

"You aren't going anywhere until you explain to me your relations with Erik, or whoever he is. I won't stop you then, but the Ghost is dangerous!"

"Not to me!" she started, but saw that it was useless. Sitting down once more, Christine quickly gave a highly expurgated account of her times with Erik. The golden ring was still clutched in her hand. She only hoped Meg hadn't seen it.

Meg must not have – or perhaps she was only letting sleeping dogs lie – for as soon as the story was over and she was properly convinced that there was no danger, she stood up and pushed Christine towards the door. "What are you waiting for?" she asked. "Your color's better now. Go on!"

If Christine had been thinking more clearly she would have seen the glint in Meg's eye: her friend was up to something! But her thoughts were all with Erik. The initial panic had faded; she didn't _really _believe he'd do anything rash, at least not until he had seen _Don Juan Triumphant_ performed. Still, she had to see for herself. Jamming the ring onto one finger to keep it safe, she nearly flew from her room.

It had been long enough, now, that she knew one passage by heart at least: that from her dressing-room to the Phantom's lair. That was the path she took, grimacing at the damp passages' effect on her beautiful skirts. They were scantily lit: she was not expected. There was enough light to see by, though, and if rats squeaked at her feet, well, she'd seen much worse before. The only thing that really concerned her was the gondola and the portcullis beyond. She had never gotten the hang of poling the boat, managing only a sort of slow, zigzagging movement. Normally Erik was there waiting to chivalrously ferry her through the flooded halls. This time he would not be.

Indeed, the gondola was as much of an obstacle as she'd feared. Several times she almost gave up, sitting down in the dirty bottom of the boat and staring at the moistly shining walls; each time she thought better of it, realized that no one would come rescue her if she didn't rescue herself, and stood up again to keep poling. She actually thought she was doing better, towards the end: had she not been wearing such an encumbering dress, she might have been downright speedy.

Finally she reached the portcullis and managed to pull the boat right up to its algae-covered bars. "Erik?" she called, searching for him, but he was not in the open front room. "Erik! Where are you?"

No one answered. She could hear nothing but the mocking drip of water.

She kept calling for what seemed like an eternity, growing slowly more and more anxious. Surely he ought to be back in his home by now! Surely the party was over upstairs; what more would keep him? The ring on her hand mocked her as she impotently shook the bars of the portcullis. She had put it on her right ring finger, as though for an engagement. The sight of it brought tears pricking in her eyes, against all reason, so she looked away. "Erik!"

Finally, finally, he came. He must have entered through one of the 'back doors,' for he emerged from one of the corridors that led around to parts of his house which Christine had not yet been invited into. "Christine?" he asked, evidently surprised. It was ridiculous how much relief that voice could bring! "I hardly thought my alarms would be set off by _you_ tonight."

"Don't be... oh, don't be like that," she replied, unable to keep petulance out of her voice. She had so quickly gone from the sublime (the woe, the agony, the pure operatic beauty of her situation) to the ridiculous! It was embarrassing, now that she knew that all her worry was unnecessary. "I'm sorry I came. I thought, since you had said you would die when you'd finished your opera..."

"Don't be sorry," he said, unconsciously echoing her words. Then he was silent, looking at her through the portcullis' wide basket-weave bars. She immediately felt that he knew exactly what had brought her there; she felt – God! she felt as though he knew every thought in her mind. And some of the thoughts weren't ones she'd admit to having, not to anyone...

Abruptly, the bars began to lift. Christine seized the pole again and brought the boat to shore as quickly as she could, necessarily breaking Erik's gaze. When she looked at him again, however, his eyes still rested on her. When he helped her out of the boat they glanced downward and back up again. What could he be looking at? she wondered, until she remembered the ring – and where she'd put it for safekeeping.

"I oughtn't wear this," she said, and slowly worked it off her finger.

"Ah," he replied, his voice somehow less powerful than it had been only a few moments before. "Then –" he took the ring from her and slipped it into his breast pocket. "I see why you came. But you cannot imagine that I would let you go simply like that?" Striding across the room to the lever that controlled the portcullis, he pushed it down with a dreadful half-smile that was more like a grimace. Whatever wavering note was in his voice before, it was gone now. "I told you the truth, Christine, on that first day. You have only one choice. _You belong to me._"

As the portcullis fell, she struggled to understand what he meant. The shocks of the day were wearing on her, and her mind was working slowly. "I only meant that I wouldn't wear it on my hand," she said, realizing what he had thought. "The opera-house is a gossip mill! But I hold to my promises! Rao – the Vicomte escorted me to the _bal masqué, _nothing more."

Walking nearly in his footsteps, she too crossed the room and retrieved the ring from his pocket. "I shall wear it – here!" A moment later, it joined her father's locket on the chain around her neck.

The death's head mask, which he had not yet exchanged for his customary half-mask, grimaced down at her when she looked up to see his response. He was silent: she could not determine what he thought at all, until slowly he lifted one hand to where the ring lay on its chain, just below her collarbone.

"Thank you," he said.

"Don't thank me," she whispered back, standing on tip-toe to reach behind his head. She fumbled for the ribbons that held the death's head mask on. So close... she could feel the now-familiar butterflies, could sense her heart rising into her throat. He was so dangerous. He needed her so badly that he would keep her by force if necessary; that was alluring, in its own way, and frightening too. The significance of the heavy bit of gold that lay, now, brushing the tops of her breasts was catching up to her. "I do hold to my promises. But I haven't promised anything – yet." It was true, she hadn't: he had always ordered, and she had not disagreed.

She hardly knew what to expect in response, but it was not his breathing to hitch, as though he were as effected by the situation as she. She was exquisitely aware of each point of contact between them: her arms rested against his broad shoulders, lightly touching his neck. Her hands caught up bits of his hair along with the mask's ribbons, until the ribbons gave way and the mask fell.

Stepping back a little and breathing freer, Christine looked into Erik's ruined face and discovered that it didn't even make her flinch. "Look," she said, her voice unsure, "your future bride."

As though in a dream, she felt his arms encircle her and his face press into her hair. It was a moment before she responded, surprised by his sudden affection. She had not known him to be an affectionate man: seductive, yes, and at times weighed down by his own past, but nothing more. Then she heard that hitching breath again and realized what she could not while he was wearing the death's head mask: he was silently weeping.

Christine had seen him cry once before, but that was the deep, uncontrolled sobs of a child. Now she was unsure whether his tears were for joy or sadness or fear. She only knew how tightly he was holding her, how he smelled and felt, how she wanted to comfort him. Carefully, as though frightened of rejection, he pressed a kiss to her forehead: the tears began anew.

"It is so good," he said, his voice soft and hoarser than she had ever heard it, "to kiss someone on the forehead. You would not believe how good it is, Christine!"

* * *

Men have a way of pretending to hide themselves, but not really doing so: they will retreat to a mostly-empty room, or to a corner, and think that their goings-on are secret from the world. Meg Giry long ago had learned this, and had been making use of it ever since. The night of the masquerade ball, however, she could not possibly try and spy out what the managers and their patron were speaking of. They had seen her leave with Christine; they knew the score.

There was someone they wouldn't suspect, however. No one ever suspected little Jammes of being anything but a bubblehead, trying to find out more about this gossip or that, trying to hear more about the Opera Ghost – and generally she _was_ no more than a bubblehead. But she owed Meg a favor, and she was genuinely interested in Christine Daaé's Cinderella story.

"We cannot succumb to this madman, whoever he is!" M. Firmin nearly shouted, not noticing a ballet girl slipping into the main auditorium.

"We can't _not!_" André replied, just as heatedly. "Next time it will be Piangi to lose his voice in the midst of a production, or Mlle. Daaé –"

"No, Mlle. Daaé will not lose her voice," the Vicomte de Chagny interjected. "Not while this ghost rules our theater. He looks at her..." There was anger in Raoul's voice.

"But the opera – it is good," André continued, ignoring the Vicomte. "Listen!" He hummed a few bars. They sounded tuneless, although Jammes could hardly tell whether that was the fault of the score or the fault of the manager's bad ear. "We won't be shamed by it, you know. What was it you were saying about tragedies, Firmin? If we put it about that this was written by the Opera Ghost we shall have full houses every night!"

"No one will believe it was written by the Opera Ghost who was not at the masquerade," Firmin pointed out.

"They haven't got to believe it – they only have to be willing to pay to see it!"

"Gentlemen!" the Vicomte broke into their banter once more. Jammes scampered down the aisles, pretending to search for something she'd left. "I know how we can snare this ghost once and for all. Put on his opera, yes, rather than _Faust_. We know exactly where he sits, or where he would sit if you did not persist in giving the spot to me. On the night of the performance, he will be unable to resist seeing his opera performed by Mlle. Daaé. You saw how he danced with her."

"Our men are there!" André expounded.

"Armed," Firmin added.

"His reign of terror over the _Opera Populaire_ shall end that night," said Raoul grimly, "and you shall have half a season in which to rule your opera-house as you like."

Jammes had heard enough: she pulled a dainty handkerchief out of one dress-pocket and held it up with a cry, as though she'd found it. The men looked over to her. "Oh! My apologies, _Messieurs,_" she said. "I was only looking for my kerchief. I did not mean to intrude."

The Vicomte seemed angry, but the managers were still officially in charge, and Firmin had a soft spot for the youngest little ballet dancer – a fact Jammes had always been quick to capitalize on. "How could the brightest jewel of our _corps de ballet_ intrude?" he said, shifting quickly from serious to laughing words. "If you had asked us, we would have helped you search!"

"La Sorelli is the brightest jewel of the ballet girls, not I, and I wouldn't be so _very_ pert as to demand that my managers – and my patron! – help look for a little scrap of cloth I lost! And now I'm on my way," she replied, flirting a little.

"Good girl," she heard Firmin say, as she drew the great doors to the theater shut behind her. "Reminds me of my oldest sister's child, who's Mme. Pierpont now, wed just two weeks ago..." His voice grew fainter and finally disappeared as she ran down the hallway. _Don Juan Triumphant_ to be performed! La Daaé to play the leading female role, across from M. Piangi! She had fully discharged her debt to Meg indeed! Revelling in this new bit of gossip, Jammes went back through the opera-house, searching out Mlle. Giry.


	9. Years Of Training

If Christine had thought she was hard-pressed to sing better, more beautifully, when she was only a ballet girl with a lovely voice, she had never imagined the rigor with which Erik intended to train her for the role of Aminta. She had been released from her ballet practices now that she was singing the _prima donna_ role, and now had the luxury of waking up at nine or ten o'clock. For that luxury, however, she paid dearly. After singing all day in rehearsals, she was expected to report to Erik's home for more tutelage, continuing on into the wee hours of the night.

Of course, that was a pleasure – an absolute pleasure. The Phantom's voice rivaled Piangi's in sheer strength; one might even say he outstripped Piangi, since there was a clarity to each word he sang that the portly singer had never achieved. When Ubaldo Piangi sang, one could hear the years of training behind him; when Erik sang, one could hear the depth of his emotion. Personally, Christine preferred the latter, and she knew that that was how Erik was training her. She was to ignore conventions that did not suit the message! Of course, _Don Juan Triumphant_ held none of those conventions, but in _Faust,_ for example...

Erik could go on about purity, purity of music, by which he really meant how well the music matched the sentiment that was supposed to go behind it. Not all his ideas were entirely operatic. Christine could not say if she agreed with them all. But he was also an excellent voice tutor, helping her reach low notes that had always been beneath her soprano's range and drawing out the very highest ones that seemed too impossible to sing, helping her learn to keep her voice steady and true even as she moved and acted.

Eventually, one could have enough of even such excellent and interesting lessons, and by the night before _Don Juan Triumphant_ was to open, she had had more than enough. It was not only that her nerves were run raw with the excitement of singing Aminta's part, either. Jammes had reported to Meg, who had told Christine, who had told Erik about the plan to depose him. However, Erik seemed to hardly care. He would not tell her his intentions regarding how to avoid their trap; he would not have her stay in his house overnight, saying that it would be too dangerous to draw _M. le Vicomte_'s eyes now.

The Vicomte only made it worse. Christine could not decide what to think of him. She could hardly take him aside and tell him the truth, and perhaps that would not move him from trying to trick Erik into being arrested. After all, the Phantom of the Opera did demand an exorbitant salary. It was blackmail, she supposed, to any court – although she could not find herself angry with him. Raoul was a rich man, after all, and MM. Firmin and André hardly less so. They could part with a few francs in exchange for Erik's magnificent opera!

Raoul, however: perhaps he had other reasons for searching out the Phantom. No. Being honest with herself, she _knew_ he had other reasons. One of her strongest childhood memories was the Little Lord (as he was called at the time by anyone who knew him) kissing her on the cheek. They were on the beach. She had dared him to do it. "There, Lotte!" he cried out, laughing at her eight-year-old's expression of disgust at a boy touching her like that. He had been summoned away by his nurse; it might have been the last time she'd seen him. The look that was in his eyes then was the same as the one she'd seen after returning from Erik's home for the first time: a little besotted, a little proud of catching her out in a dare she'd not wanted to see completed (or, in the later case, in a lie).

The look in his eyes at the _bal masqué, _however, was one she had never seen. If she named it, it would be 'suspicion,' or perhaps 'jealousy.' It was difficult to tell the difference between the two. But she had given him reason enough to feel either, so she could hardly blame him.

That was the difficulty. She could not blame Raoul for his actions any more than she could condemn Erik for his. One or the other of them, however, had to be right, and the other wrong! It was a simple moral choice, but it seemed that so many hours spent in the grey twilight of the opera-house's cellars had rendered her unable to see things simply as black or white.

These thoughts made her reach the shore of the waterways in a very distracted state. She noticed Erik poling the gondola towards her, as he always did if he was not already waiting, long before he noticed that she had already arrived. Once she was in the boat, she tried to start her warm-ups to no avail. She was too wound up, and nothing would unwind her.

He was silent, bearing with her, for some time, but that had to end. He was never a patient man, at least not regarding song. The gondola drew up to the shore of the lake; he helped her out but then stalked away, as though he had no use for someone who could not sing.

"Erik," she sallied. "Erik – I'm sorry. I shall be able to sing tomorrow night, I know I shall. I've practiced so much, I know it will be fine..."

"It cannot be merely fine. It must be _perfect_," he said, with the fierce tenacity that only genius creates. Christine could read the tension, now, in every line of his body. When calm he held himself erect, a princely posture. When not, he hunched a little, as though making his tall frame smaller. He was just as badly off as her, she realized. They were both pained from their long days and nights. How could she be so foolish as to think he was not watching her in rehearsal, to think that he didn't have a hand in every aspect of this opera?

The miniatures in his toy opera-house had been repainted. Don Juan embraced Aminta atop the catwalk that crossed the stage in the first act of _Don Juan Triumphant._ Beneath them there was a pit for a real flame. The one on stage would be only crêpe-paper.

"I can't promise you perfection," she said. "No one can. Take off your mask and play me something different, Erik. You walk on the edge of madness, and one more night of worrying about your opera will send you right over it."

He turned abruptly to face her and there was a moment in which neither moved. He searched her face for ridicule, for anger or exasperation. There was none – well, perhaps a little bit of the last, but that could be overlooked. She won the unspoken argument. Casually he removed the half-mask. "I shall do anything to please you."

It was the first time he had played for her, truly played for her. She had heard him composing during nights in the dormitory, yes, and he had sung to her and played to accompany her voice. She had even heard him at work while she was in the underground house, hidden away in the bedroom. She had never asked him to simply make music on that great organ. It was magnificent. It was a mass of some kind, and when he sang "Kyrie eleison," she believed that he was truly asking for forgiveness, but she did not know what for.

"I did not know you attended church," she said delicately, when his hands at last dropped to his lap.

"I do not," he said. "But I shall attend church once more in my life. That was a wedding mass, Christine."

A great stillness came upon her. Thoughts flitted rapidly through her mind. She had not actually realized, not actually believed that it would come to this. Doubt filled her. Could she live a life with Erik? Could she – oh, Raoul! After the _bal masqué _she knew he was hers for the asking. He was so perfectly formed, a nobleman, only thinking of her own safety. Would she damn herself if – if –

Unable to make sense of her inward feelings, she turned outward and saw for the first time the apprehensiveness in Erik's eyes. He would force her to marry him if she would not. She believed him to be capable of it. But he wanted her to love him! Oh, he so wanted her to stay with him, she realized. That starveling way he tried to pretend he was indifferent to her touch, his voice leading hers to greater heights, the glorious duet of _Don Juan Triumphant_, it was all only him, all encompassed in him.

And it was that which decided her, freed her to move and respond. That music was something no one else could touch, not Raoul or any other suitor. She soared in his song, and she would rather give anything up but that. For the music he made she would grow accustomed to a hundred ruined faces, survive a hundred rages like that she'd set off when she'd first removed his mask.

"So it was," she said, smiling. "It was beautiful. You composed it, didn't you." It was not a question. No one else would use disharmonies in that precise way, would suddenly allow them to collapse into a joyous and entirely whole melody.

"I have left the _Opera Populaire_ more often in the past six months, all for you, than I ever did in the six years prior," he said, in a seeming non sequitur. "I have made preparations. Do not concern yourself with the Vicomte, tomorrow night. Think only of your song."

He stood, pushing the bench away from the organ, and descended the staircase to the gondola's mooring. "You need rest, Christine. I shall see you back through the flooded halls."

Very formally she came from where she had been sitting on the divan and accepted his help into the boat. Very formally he settled her there and gracefully pushed off into the deeper waters. They were silent, for a time, still nervous about more things than the performance.

As she stepped out of the boat onto the opposite shore, Christine turned to ask one question. "Erik," she said. "I do not know what – what I shall be called, after we are wed."

For a moment he was discomfited; then he answered shortly. "de Becque, Christine," he said. "Mme. de Becque."

He poled the boat away from her quickly then. She did not know the meaning of his haste, but she barely noticed it. Her mind was too full of the coming performance and whatever would happen after, with the police. The only thought she could coherently form was this: At least Mme. de Becque is better than Mme. O.G.!


	10. The Phantom's Opera

The moment he stepped onstage, Christine knew it.

It was supposed to be Ubaldo Piangi in the leading male role – safe Piangi, La Carlotta's lover, portly and hardly anyone's idea of a Don Juan. It _had_ been Piangi only a few moments ago, describing the plot to seduce Aminta: she had seen him from offstage! But now that she had stepped onstage and turned her back to the curtains where Don Juan was supposedly hiding, Piangi had been replaced.

"The trap is set and waits for its prey," Erik sang softly, his voice echoing as a result of the theater's exquisite acoustics. The words sent a chill down her spine. She was not sure whether that was a result of his insinuating voice or the fact that the words to this particular song were particularly apropos – or whether she was wondering what, exactly, had happened to Piangi.

"You have come here in pursuit of your deepest urge," he went on, weaving his seducer's net of words around Aminta and Christine both. This was not the affectionate Erik who had wept in her arms after the masquerade ball. It was dark, half-handsome Erik who had convinced her that her father's promises of an Angel of Music were true. It was Don Juan – Don Juan Triumphant. Suddenly, she realized the delicious irony of the entire opera.

The orchestra kept playing, Erik kept singing, but Christine could not yet turn her head. It was not in the part – not in the _part_! She tried to convince herself not to break the carefully planned blocking for this vital scene, but she couldn't help it. She had to turn.

Even behind Don Juan's black mask, his gaze pinned her to the spot. She could not move. His dangerous side had not come to the forefront in recent days; the Opera Ghost was supplanted by the benevolent Angel of Music, teaching her how to sing properly, teaching her how to inflect each word so that the audience understood exactly what Aminta was feeling and thinking. Before, he had never sung Don Juan's part like this. Before, he had never inspired in her the sort of performance that only comes from true feeling.

Christine was a good girl; she had never been in Aminta's place before, could not express the mixed fear and pleasure of it. Now... now, she was beginning to understand. And it was her turn to sing.

Slowly, taking her time as the orchestra rested, she moistened her lips and began. The words were too true for her to hide her genuine reaction – a reaction appropriate for Aminta, she realized. There was the bridge from Don Juan's part to hers, the soft and tremulous words of a girl not really sure of what she might be doing; that part had always been easy for her. What had been difficult was coming.

"Past the point of no return," Christine sang, nearly as low as she could convince her voice to go. As she did, she stood, turning. It was not so much a mere lyric as a challenge. Erik rose to that challenge. He was a formidable opponent in this back-and-forth singing, holding his own as almost no one could against her amazingly strong voice. They followed the choreography then, mounting twin spiral staircases to the catwalk over the stage.

As long as she could not directly see him, she thought perhaps she was safe, perhaps she could gain control of her emotions once more. It was not true, she realized, as she reached the final step and raised her eyes once more to his. Never breaking her gaze, the Phantom twitched his cape off and moved inexorably closer to her.

He swirled that cape like a bridegroom headed to his wedding night, she thought, and stifled it. It was an indecent thought – and yet that was the point of _Don Juan Triumphant,_ really, the indecency.

Then their duet began.

Christine had always thought of her voice as something strong in and of itself, something powerful and vital. Perhaps it was – on its own. In this aria, however, no matter how much strength she put behind her words it was insignificant. Oh, she was heard easily enough. But every note she sang, every phrase, rested on the bedrock of Erik's voice. Smooth, deep and steady, it anchored her and set her free, sobered and intoxicated her. She could not possibly go off into egocentric, decorative fripperies of song like Carlotta usually did, not with this voice behind her.

Yet the words they sang were powerful enough to do something entirely different, not tie her down but make anything possible. She had sung that they were 'past all thought of right or wrong,' and they were. Oh, they were.

Together they moved in time to the music, their steps measured and careful. She wanted to hurry, to throw herself into his arms, but she couldn't: that would break the rhythm, stop the music! And Erik's opera must be performed. His hand on her wrist, sudden and surprising as a real Don Juan's might have been to Aminta, burned. She could hardly think to toss her hair in that becoming way Madame Giry had suggested, hardly remember how she was supposed to half-turn her body to the audience. The opera was breaking down. The opera was becoming real.

They rested. One gloved hand came up to rest on Christine's neck in a motion that could be either menacing or tender. He could snap that neck now, she realized with a shudder, if he chose to – could grab her and throw her off their perch, maybe to her death. But he would not. "This is the point of no return," he said levelly, and jerked the ring from where it lay on the chain around her neck. Her father's locket fell, unnoticed, to the stage below. "Make your promises."

She raised her right hand to let him slip the ring on. It shone in the spotlight so that all the theater could see. "I won't ask you to take off your mask this time," she responded in a voice so low that no one could possibly hear but them. "Later, I shall." And as though it were simply part of the scene, as though she had practiced a great deal beforehand and knew exactly what to do, she tilted her head and stood on tip-toe to claim Erik's lips in a summer-sweet kiss.

Suddenly she felt his arm clamp hard around her waist and came back to herself. Offstage, she heard the shouting of angry men, the tread of boots. "They're coming!" she whispered, suddenly terrified and ashamed of her uselessness.

"Hold tight," Erik replied. The world dropped out from beneath them.

They landed in a pile of hay, obviously placed just for that purpose. Christine had the breath knocked out of her, but as she lay gasping Erik guessed what her first question would be. "I had a hand in the making of that set. Someone left anonymous suggestions for the designer. They were implemented. We are safe for now, far beneath the stage with the trapdoors all shut behind us, but we will not be safe for long."

Stifling the desire to lie down until her breathing returned to normal, she struggled up. Together they followed the paths that would lead them to the underground house, first slowly and then quicker as Christine recovered from the shock of their landing. They glanced at each other out of the corner of their eyes like skittish cats do, neither willing to give up and speak of what had passed between them on the stage of the _Opera Populaire,_ both still unsure.

"I had no time to pack your things, though I brought them from your dressing-room for you. You shall have to do that now while I set some things in order. Work quickly. We have no time to lose. Soon someone shall explain this place, and then we will be pursued."

Christine did as she was told, finding that her clothes and personal items had been dumped unceremoniously on the swan-shaped bed and that there was a small, inadequate trunk next to it. If they were to be pursued, though, she ought to take nothing but what she could carry – so she quickly changed from her costume into a proper traveling-gown, using her pair of whore's hooks (so named because they allowed a woman to don a lady's dress without the help of a lady's maid) to do up the back. Then she packed only one other frock and the necessary unmentionables, using the rest of the space for the few things she could call her own: a tattered diary, a long-unread novel her father had given her when she was quite young, a small kit with which to darn stockings and mend clothes.

All in all, it did not take long, and when she emerged from the bedroom carrying her trunk Erik was standing before one particular section of velvet curtain. It was the section that hid the wedding dress. "We won't be able to take it with us, will we?" she asked, unnecessarily.

"What?"

"The gown – oh! I never told you. I found it that first night I stayed here, when you were gone to the shops. I won't deny it gave me a turn, then, but it is lovely..." Now that her mind turned to the subject, now that the pounding urgency of _Don Juan Triumphant_ had receded in their disconcerting fall and the menial task of packing, Christine realized she was quite attached to the dress. It was not really the idea of being married, even; it was only that now, looking at it, she felt not the slightest urge to cry.

"You amaze me," Erik said hoarsely. "You would pledge your life to me? Knowing that it means an eternity of _this_ before you?" He indicated his still-hidden face with one jerky motion that contained all the anger, all the pain, of years of frustrated dreams.

She put down her trunk, untied the ribbon of Don Juan's mask, and said "Yes."

This time their kiss was not sweet but passionate. Erik's hands moved over the unfamiliar shapes of her body, lingering at the nape of her neck, the small of her back. Christine's heart was in her throat, but it was so good, so _perfect_ to feel those masterful hands that she did not mind in the least. For a moment she marveled at her feelings, but that thought was soon drowned in the warring sensations that fought for prevalence.

Unable to stop herself, whatever 'nice girls' did, she pressed her palms to the bare chest that his Don Juan costume left exposed. His skin was warm and surprisingly soft, no different than her own. Emboldened, she pressed her lips along the line of his jaw, the one part of his face that remained unblemished on both sides. They were so close that she could hear his breathing grow uneven, feel his heart beat faster under her fingertips.

"Erik," she said, without thought or planning, wanting only to reassure him – wanting to express the feelings she had never yet put a name to. "It isn't only a wedding because you've forced me. I'd have asked the Vicomte de Chagny to take me away if that was so. I – "

"_Christine!_"

"Speak of the devil," Erik said bitterly. A man had just come thrashing through the water to the closed portcullis, banging on the bars as Christine had the night of the _bal masqué._ It was Raoul.


	11. Burning Bridges

"Let her go," Raoul said with every bit of lordly dignity he had remaining, his golden-brown hair tangling around his shoulders and getting in his mouth. He had not found it easy to reach the Phantom's lair: he was soaked to the bone, dirty, angry. "Christine, has he harmed you?"

Dumbfounded, Christine could only shake her head incredulously.

"This is an unparalleled delight!" Erik said poisonously, backing away from her and raising his hands in a gesture half of welcome and half of surrender. "My dear, shall we have him to supper, perhaps? None of us have eaten, I imagine."

That shook her out of her momentary stupor. Little toad! she thought angrily to herself. You can't simply let them fight it out! They'll kill each other if you don't do something. "Stop," she told Erik, and put a hand back onto his arm. "Raoul, I'll lift the portcullis if you promise not to – to do anything rash."

"That depends on what you mean by 'rash.'"

"I'm here of my own free will!"

There was silence in the cave. The _plink _of water, constant even in Erik's underground home, was suddenly deafening. Christine watched as Raoul's face changed from fear to horror and revulsion. She knew that, for the first time, he had bothered to truly look at Erik's abhorrent face. "It has bewitched you. That _thing_ has done something to you. Look at him! Think of what he's done! M. Firmin shall be bankrupted!"

"You know as well as I that that's not so," Erik said.

"Raoul! Do you promise not to hurt us?" Christine filled her voice with as much emotion as she could, in order to convince him to swear. He would be true to his word, she knew: men like Raoul prided themselves on that. "We shall go and leave you here if you won't. You know we can."

He agreed, reluctantly. The portcullis came up with the groan of machinery and a deafening rush of water. Raoul rushed through the opening, struggling in the flooded corridor. The water reached his waist. Finally he made it up into Erik's house. Christine took his measure: he was confused and angry, frustrated, uncomprehending of the choices she made.

"If you have harmed her, if you have – have threatened her virtue, Monsieur," he addressed to Erik this time, "I shall not abide by my promise. You cannot deny that any rational man would believe – well. Now, Christine, stop this madness! You see that I shall harm no one. Come away, and all will be well with the world again!"

"You think that I would harm her?" Erik responded before Christine could think what to say. She kept a hand on his arm to anchor him, remind him that she did not want anybody hurt on her account; otherwise, she felt sure he would have done something terrible. "Foolish boy! I love her. Why should I make her pay for the sins of the world? She is the only one who has not been cruel. I would have captured _you_ if my aim was revenge."

Raoul blanched as Christine hurried to say, "I won't go, Raoul, I can't. I don't – I don't want to."

"The mob is on its way," he replied, taking a different tactic. Even as children he had won arguments like that, switching between different approaches until he found one that worked. "Mme. Giry and her daughter were going to try and stop them, for what reason I know not, but two women cannot hold back all the policemen gathered in the _Opera Populaire._ If Christine comes with me, your home is safe, Monsieur. Surely you see that it is necessary?"

For the first time, Christine was conscious of the fact that they were underground, deep beneath the opera-house. Before she had paid no attention to the physical location of each room, thinking of them only in an abstracted sort of way. Now the weight of the great building weighed down on her from above, the hundreds of tons of building material, the hundreds of people likely still milling about above their heads. They could get out – she knew they could get out – but this sanctuary, this place would be overrun. It was quite possible to puzzle out the tunnels, given time and the determination to do so.

"We will not be coming back to this place," Erik said implacably. "The mob may have their way with it. I shall regret some things that will undoubtedly be destroyed, but they are only material things, after all. They might as well be burned up in a chance fire, or ruined by a flood. The water here rises in the winter commonly enough; one year it might rise too high."

"But Christine's life is at the opera-house. Her music means everything to her. Have some pity! You cannot take her away from her song!"

"Raoul - come," she finally said, tired of being talked about. "Were I your wife you would prevent me from singing publicly. No man wants their helpmeet involved in the theater, of all scandalous things." From his mouth's brief twitch downward she knew she had hit the nail on the head. He _was_ jealous! He _was_ thinking of her as a wife! She could not help but feel a bit vindicated, pleased at his attentions. Still – "Erik will not deny me performance if I wish it."

"You choose him, then?" Raoul asked, dangerous and low. He stood still, focused, still angry at the very situation. "Do you love him, Christine? Could you stand seeing that – that foul face each morning? Will you sleep soundly at night knowing such a man lives in your home? Or has he convinced you, bewitched you, coerced you? I love you! I have since we were children and it grows stronger each day since I saw you again! Shall this be your choice?"

That was the crux of it, really, the salient point. But she did not even think before she answered. The word was automatic. "Yes." She paused, thought, spoke again. "You would hardly understand. I hardly understand. He isn't my life, Raoul, or anything terribly passionate like that. I wouldn't go anywhere or do anything for him, and he must limit himself and not do everything for me. But his face is insignificant, and..." she trailed off, unsure of how to phrase anything more. She didn't dare look at Erik, and her cheeks burned for no reason at all. "You only think you love me. You love an idea, a memory. I am not the little girl whose scarf you fetched from the sea anymore."

Raoul, who had been holding his chin at an imperious angle, dropped it. "Go," he said, half-calmly. Then, when they stood still, shocked: "_Go!_"

That second word propelled Erik to a sideboard, where he seized a candlestick – one of the few that was not a proper candelabra. He slipped back into the bathroom. There was a smash and the sound of broken glass falling to the floor before he emerged again. "The way to our conveyance is through here. Give me your trunk," he said to Christine, putting on his white mask with deft fingers.

As they turned and left, letting the heavy velvet draperies that had once covered the bedroom's mirror fall shut behind them, Christine thought she heard Raoul call after them. She turned to look but saw nothing but dark fabric.

"_Bonsoir,"_ she thought he said. But perhaps she was wrong. They were moving quickly, after all, and it was difficult to tell.

\-----

The disappearance of La Daaé was discussed in great detail, not only in the opera-house but in the newspapers. After all, it was a mystery never to be solved involving the theater, the aristocracy, and a beautiful woman. The facts of the case were these: a mysterious man, dressed to play the role of Don Juan, bound and gagged M. Piangi and went on-stage to replace him, performing the better part of a scene; he then proceeded to kidnap Mlle. Daaé, using an ingenious system of simple machines, such as are used for almost every theater-trick. A mob formed to search the bowels of the theater for the infamous Opera Ghost, the presumed culprit; when they found what seemed to be the ghost's lair, however, there was only one person present: the Vicomte Raoul de Chagny. He claimed to have found the place deserted. However, his story of stumbling upon a secret passage and following it to the underground house by chance was highly suspect; he was considered a possible accomplice to Mlle. Daaé's kidnapping for some time, and the charges were never fully disproven.

What the newspapers never discovered, though, was the letter Meg Giry received shortly after the happenings at the _Opera Populaire._ It was short and written in a poor hand, but on fine paper. It was, in fact, exactly the sort of letter that Christine Daaé had been apt to write before her disappearance. This was no coincidence.

Meg,

If I could I should have warned you, but I knew nothing about what was to happen. I could not tell you all before for fear of worry, but it is enough to say that I am married now and living far away from Paris. There are hard times yet and I do not know when Erik shall enjoy the daylight again, or when he shall believe that no one of any learning would shun him for his unfortunate face, but we grow more content every day. Do not fear for me. I do love him, in my own way, and he is devoted to me. You may send letters care of M. François Belfoi, of Street. Someday perhaps we may meet again, but that cannot happen for many years, I imagineYou would not want to endanger our happiness.

Yours always,

Mme. de Becque.

If anyone had intercepted the letter, there would be suspicions; but without deep knowledge of the intricacies of Mlle. Daaé's situation, no one could rightly connect the mysterious Mme. de Becque with it. No one did intercept it, however, and it comforted Meg a great deal to know that her friend was happy.

The other communication between the de Becques and their old companions at the opera-house was of a very different nature. For several weeks a cryptic and sparse ad was placed in a prominent Paris newspaper of wide circulation, long enough that it would surely catch its intended recipients' attention. It too went undiscovered, ironically by the same paper that had covered the tragedy at the _Opera Populaire_ most avidly.

Lotte &amp; O.G. – I keep secrets well &amp; wish you the best. Hope Lotte is happy now. Hope you are truly married. If I hear otherwise, I'll come after you both. Wish I could have said good-bye. Wish things different. Mlle. G. told me some, hope she told me true. Lotte ought to have said. Someday come see me. R.

Though undiscovered, the ad was not ignored. It reached the proper eyes, eliciting a certain amount of relief. After all, Christine had liked Raoul very well, for a time. Her husband responded typically, however: "I have been wrong about people before – yet I wonder what his response would have been if you _had_ told him? I hardly believe he would be as enlightened as he is now." She had already learned to shrug his cynicism off, and it affected her as little as water affects a duck.

Someday, she knew, when he could walk in daylight without fear and had fully established his reputation as an architect and had nothing to be ashamed of any longer, he would come around – and then the Vicomte de Chagny would have some unexpected visitors.

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to end with a thank-you to my reviewers on fanfiction.net, who supported me through the writing of this story. Also, I'd like to add that along with the Webber score, two songs helped keep me inspired: "Left and Leaving," by the Weakerthans, and "Mother of Love," by the Velvet Teen.
> 
> Originally, this story was to be followed up with a significantly juicier (read: R-rated) sequel, but I found I'd lost the taste for it. C'est la vie...


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